It is at this time in America that we have a fresh update not just of it's gorgeous landscape, but a more modern tale of the open spaces and characters that inhabit it. Throw in a gorgeous cinematography and you have one of the most memorable films I have seen in years.
The Rider focuses on a family, and particularly one son who after an unfortunate competition accident, is stuck not just in a sea of empty direction, but a loss of his true identity.
He is guided by other riding friends, a somewhat dis-interested father, and his disabled younger sister.
This film could be filed with obvious tropes, the big Karate Kid like comeback, family redemption, but instead it has the unique ability to keep things intensely real. The characters don't even seem like they are acting, there is a real sense of the Western camaraderie and landscape out on the plains, a Holden Caulfieldesque genuine relationship with a sister so real as if Salinger wrote it himself, and a look into a culture that has been updated for the 21st century.
The cinematography along with the main characters angst, ooze off the screen in burnt and dark rolling hills of pathos and glory. The images and storyline offer such an intense look in a life that many can only barely grasp. The movie's effect is so striking, that in a particular scene when a simple horse is ridden, it is one of the beautiful, haunting, majestic and gut wrenching images you will ever witness on screen.
Director Chloe Zhao has crafted one of the most amazing looking and storytelling pieces of Americana in ages, while lead actor Brady Jandreau pulls off a character and role with such passion and ease, it's as if he was a modern James Dean and John Wayne all rolled up into one.
A not to be missed film.
The Rider focuses on a family, and particularly one son who after an unfortunate competition accident, is stuck not just in a sea of empty direction, but a loss of his true identity.
He is guided by other riding friends, a somewhat dis-interested father, and his disabled younger sister.
This film could be filed with obvious tropes, the big Karate Kid like comeback, family redemption, but instead it has the unique ability to keep things intensely real. The characters don't even seem like they are acting, there is a real sense of the Western camaraderie and landscape out on the plains, a Holden Caulfieldesque genuine relationship with a sister so real as if Salinger wrote it himself, and a look into a culture that has been updated for the 21st century.
The cinematography along with the main characters angst, ooze off the screen in burnt and dark rolling hills of pathos and glory. The images and storyline offer such an intense look in a life that many can only barely grasp. The movie's effect is so striking, that in a particular scene when a simple horse is ridden, it is one of the beautiful, haunting, majestic and gut wrenching images you will ever witness on screen.
Director Chloe Zhao has crafted one of the most amazing looking and storytelling pieces of Americana in ages, while lead actor Brady Jandreau pulls off a character and role with such passion and ease, it's as if he was a modern James Dean and John Wayne all rolled up into one.
A not to be missed film.